The benefit of democracy

[Alex Dog]

I took this screenie and then went thru each city to record the actual benefit of switching from monarchy in a very violent game (almost, but not-quite-always war)

Spoiler :

This continent was located in the northwestern hemisphere and had no civs on it, despite the size. I was China and conquered the Egytian colonies before switching over from monarchy to democracy. This made for a turboboost to my tax revenues and my science rates. Each of my colonies, after "home rule" was established and the war-hero of the Sino-Egyptian War rush-built the Forbidden Palace, suddenly started paying for themselves.

The 13 cities on the western continent went from 14 shields of production to 53, from 20gpt in taxes paid to 177g, and from 14 beakers of research per turn to 170. Wow.

Of course after that, I had to find a peaceful way to beat the Iroquois. Stupid democratic citizens don't seem to like wars.

 

[Puppeteer]

A per-city comparison is interesting, but the overall picture is more important.

In Monarchy you have more free unit support and can use military to control unhappiness, so usually you don't have to divert as much money to entertainment.

In Democracy (and Republic) you don't have much free unit support (in Conquests, none in previous games), your paid unit support is higher (in Conquests) and you can't use military to control unhappiness, so generally a higher % of base income (before bonus multipliers) goes to entertainment, and more after-multiplier income goes to unit support.

In effect representative governments limit your corrupt city population because you either don't have the local income to keep them happy or turning the % up high enough cripples your non-corrupt city revenue.

If you're planning to be at war sometime during the game with one civ for much longer than 20 turns, a lot of people go straight to Monarchy and stay there (or sometimes go to Communism if waging world domination/conquest late in the game). If you're planning a peaceful game or plan to alternate short wars between foes then Republic is the usual get-there-and-stay government. Democracy is seldom used because it's a research detour, it comes relatively late in the game and many people don't like the loss of productivity in their empire during that time period for as long as anarchy often is.

In Republic it's possible (though usually inadvisable) to stay at war indefinitely with crippling unhappiness, but in Democracy if they get unhappy enough they'll revolt and send you into involuntary anarchy.

It should also be noted whether or not your island settlements are connected by trade network to your capital in the before/after comparison. At the time you reach democracy you may or may not have been able to trade over ocean tiles, and if you were at war your sea/coast trade routes may have been blocked by another civ. A city is more corrupt if it does not have a trade route back to the capital.

But each game is different, and each player is different, and the many possibilities are fun.

 

[Puppeteer]

I see you're building libraries and temples on the conquered lands. Let's take Kaifeng. You're making 3 beakers (science) per turn (bpt). After a library which costs 80s and 1gpt you'll be making 4bpt instead of 3bpt. Net zero commerce effect and a lot of shields expended.

However, pop out a worker or two, irrigate all that grassland and wheat, and make a specialist farm (a few citizens collect a lot of food to support the taxmen and scientists). Each specialist will give you either 2gpt or 3bpt. And the 20f/10s worker might cost 2gpt while he's roaming around, but when/if you're done with him you can add him back to a city. That works under any government, although not quite as well under Despotism.

If you just want some culture a temple is fewer shields, will pop borders only a bit slower than libraries and keeps one person happy at 1gpt cost, but if you're just popping borders it probably makes sense to sell the temple after expansion to save the 1gpt.

Ivorytown has your harbor which connects your ivory back to your main civ (and soon that extra iron to trade, too), so it's worth the gpt, but it really has no business building military. Maybe let it build itself a wall and then slow-build transports or other naval units? It hasn't the food to be an effective specialist farm, but I suppose you could have one taxman to pay for the harbor. Also, judging by the borders this town has a culture building that's already popped the borders twice. Unless you're going for domination it's probably smarter to sell those culture buildings. If you are going for domination it might be cheaper and faster to plop another city to pick up those coastal squares.

On the other hand, if you're planning to go Communist you may or may not find these buildings useful then.

 

[Alex Dog]

*frantically taking notes*

 

[Puppeteer]

*frantically taking notes*

Most of what I "know" is from reading succession games and/or stories and tales. Also games of the month and hall of fame attempts.

What's interesting is when you start thinking/playing one way and then see someone else do something completely different and making it work. Everything I said above may not be "right" in the context of a particular game or particular strategy. For example if you were going to Communism soon or if this were a vanilla or PTW (not Conquests) game then building up libraries and markets near where you're building the FP would probably be sensible.

In vanilla and PTW the FP works as a second capital for rank and distance corruption, effectively making a second core of non-corrupt cities. In Conquests it only increases the optimal city number and lessens distance corruption which is a far less powerful factor than rank. (Not sure about its effect in Communism...I don't usually use that government.) In Conquests I don't think it's worth the effort to build the FP on a distant land like that, but in vanilla and PTW doing so would make that island like a second core. In Conquests I usually hand-build the FP two or three cities distant from the capital (on a standard-sized map).

One more caveat: If you're able to put these cities in WLTK (We Love The King Day, at least 6 pop, no unhappy citizens and more happy than content citizens) and keep them there then shield production becomes far less corrupt, although gold is still corrupt. So if you have lots of happy modifiers the island could be productive shieldwise in Conquests with centralized governments.

I wiped and reloaded my OS recently when my Win8 preview expired. I guess it's time to reinstall CivIII and play.